During that presentation (you canÂ find my slides here), I mentioned new skills that information professionals need to successfully run social media for their organization. That list included these things:

The normal mad librarian skills (fill in the blank here). Searching, reader’s advisory, research, etc. These “traditional” skills can easily be used in a modern online setting.

Web and social media skills. As in, being an expert end user. It’s hard to be an expert in Google searching if you don’t really know all the bells and whistles of Google searching, for example (and yes, I’ve known librarians who really couldn’t use basic online search engines well, let alone a web browser). The same thing goes for social media tools – you won’t be very successful at running the library’s Twitter account if you don’t really “get” Twitter.

Writing skills. Most of us learned how to write in school. Unfortunately, we learned how to write business letters and academic papers. Guess what? That’s not how we should write on the web. If you want to start a conversation, you need to use a conversational writing style. If you want readers to quickly grasp your content, use some of those writing tips I mentioned in my article Writing for the Mobile Web.

Photo and video skills. Social media is very visual. Take a peek at Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, Slideshare, Vine, Flickr, Youtube, Vimeo, etc. All include photos and videos. That means YOU need to be able to create photos and videos that quickly communicate to your organization’s social media crowd.

Networking. Social media IS networking. Today’s librarian needs to be good at talking to a crowd – online and in-person.

Marketing & promotion. Part of your social media duties include sharing the cool stuff your library is doing.

In a previous post, I said I’d talk more about being “business casual.” What exactly does being business casual mean?

First off, I have a whole chapter devoted to this idea in my new book, Face2Face (and I’d love it if you bought a copy!). If you want more detail, it’s in the book.

Here are some thoughts on how to be business casual in your interactions. These ideas work for blog posts, status updates, and even in videos:

Write Like You Talk.Â Most of us were taught that writing was a very formal, proper thing. We were taught to write business letters and academic papers. Guess what? Don’t write like that (Karol, guest blogger over at ProBlogger, agrees). Forget some of those rules, right now. It’s a more formal writing style, and it makes you sound more formal and less approachable.

Instead of a formal writing style, just write like you talk. This is very hard for some people to do! Theyâ€™ve been trained to write a certain way, and suddenly writing in a different way doesnâ€™t come naturally. If writing like you talk doesn’t come naturally, you can …

Say it out loud.Â If writing like you talk is hard for you, hereâ€™s a simple trick: Simply say it out loud. Read, out loud, what you just typed. Does it sound like you? If not, thenÂ rewrite your text so it sounds like something you’d actually say.

Write to your friend.Â Another trick – pretend youâ€™re writing to your best friend, or a sibling. When youâ€™re writing an email or a Facebook message to a friend, you probably write a bit more casually, as if you were standing there, talking to your friend. Youâ€™re familiar with that person, so you are using casual, friendly language with them.

Thatâ€™s the voice you need to use (minus the inside jokes and potentially off-color language) when writing to customers.

Wear fun clothes – not a suit and tie.Â If youâ€™re a visual person, hereâ€™s another way to think about this concept (and this is why I say to write “business casual”). Picture yourself wearing casual clothes when you write, rather than a tuxedo. Itâ€™s another trick to help remove formal language from your writing. Write like itâ€™s â€œcasual Fridayâ€ rather than â€œmeeting Monday.â€

Use language your customers use.Â In a library setting, we have to really work at this one – and most businesses are in the same predicament because of industry jargon. Remove all instances of technical language and jargon on your site. An easy way to do this is to simply ask your customers what theyâ€™d call something. For example, we removed one bit of jargon at my library by asking our customers what they would call â€œthe room where we put a book they reserved to be checked out.â€ We actually stationed one of our Marketing interns by our check out line for a day, and had her poll the people waiting in line. We received some great feedback – the room is now called the â€œHolds Pickup Roomâ€ and it works great. Our customers know what to look for, because we named it using our customersâ€™ language.Â You can do a similar thing with your organizationâ€™s products and services. Pick something your customers do, and simply ask them what theyâ€™d call it.

Do some behind-the-scenes videos. Show what goes on in the office or behind-the-scenes. This type of video captures workers in their element (at the office, doing their work), rather than artificially standing in front of a backdrop, with lights shining on them, talking to a camera. You can even interview them.Â Blip.tv does a great job of this with their Blip on Blip video series. They walk around their workplace, taking videos of staff and and sharing those videos with the Blip.tv community.Â This type of video shows real people at work, having fun. Getting to know someone by watching them in a video helps customers. When a customer has to call in for support, for example, they might just â€œknowâ€ who theyâ€™re talking to – because they just watched that customer service rep in a video.

Represent Your Organization, not Yourself.Â Finally, remember this: when you share that slightly casual, personal voice, and youâ€™re doing it for your organization … you are essentially representing that organization. You become the voice for your organization or business.Â Your website, your content, and your employees have unique personalities. This uniqueness will come out. Your brochures were written by people who have a voice, and some personality comes from those, too. All that adds up to an organizational personality. Even your physical building (if you have one) has a feel or personality.Â The challenge is to make these match so you can present a uniform image. Sit down, do some planning, and map out each aspect of your organization – the building, the marketing, the website, the staff. Plan the voice of your organization.

These are some ideas of how to be business casual online – do you have others? I’d love to hear them!